Soldier's mother had 'bad feeling' on Iraq / Ex-QB dies as he lived -- in the action

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Soldier's mother had 'bad feeling' on Iraq / Ex-QB dies as he lived -- in the action

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Sean Silva liked playing football so much that he once got sent home from middle school for bringing a football to class and tossing it among his classmates.

He was tall and fast, with a head full of red hair. He was the starting quarterback for Pinole Valley High School, and a force to be reckoned with. He loved to rush headlong into whatever action there was.

Last week in Baghdad, Private Silva rushed into action one last time, to back up his Army comrades who had been ambushed during a street patrol. He was struck twice in the head by bullets and died. He was 23 years old and 7,500 miles from home.

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"He went over there because he wanted to do the right thing," his mother,

Donna Cowan, said Tuesday. "That's the bottom line. He wanted to help the country and he wanted to help his buddies."

Silva grew up in El Sobrante, where he was a highly decorated Boy Scout and a regular on his troop's 50-mile hikes, encouraging his fellow Scouts to keep plodding along.

He attended Pinole Valley High School and made the varsity football team as a sophomore.

"With Sean, it was always football, football, football," said his mother,

an office manager who lives in Pleasanton. "He loved it. When he was in the game, he was so excited to be part of the action. When he had to sit on the sidelines, he would be nervous as a racehorse, pacing up and down."

After high school, Silva moved to Roseville and found work at a home improvement store, where he delighted in helping strangers figure out their do- it-yourself projects.

At lunch, he would head for the local Burger King and have a chicken sandwich with double mayonnaise - every single day, without fail.

"He loved Burger King," his mother said. "He supersized everything. I couldn't keep him out of the place."

He attended Sierra College, tinkered with his beloved Datsun 240Z sports car, played football in the park and tried to figure out what was going to come next. Over the summer, he decided it would be the Army. He enlisted and found himself assigned to basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., and then to the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fort Polk, La.

He got tired of training, and of waiting, and he wanted to do more. About a month ago, his mother got a call.

"He told me, 'We're going to Baghdad, mom,' " she recalled. "He said he was so excited. I had an intuitive feeling. A bad feeling about it. I was pretty much heartbroken before he left."

Cowan got the visit from the chaplain Friday. The next day, she got a call from her son's captain, who told her that her son had dashed into the middle of a street ambush, trying to return fire and help out his comrades. The captain said Silva was being nominated for the Bronze Star for valor.

In addition to his mother, Silva is survived by his father, Richard Silva,

of Roseville, and by his brother, Wesley, of Hercules. Memorial donations may be sent to the Pinole Valley High School Student Body Football Fund, 2900 Pinole Valley Road, Pinole, CA 94564.

His mother says his funeral will be held in a week or so, in a Sacramento church.

She said she is going to adorn his funeral bouquets with empty cups from Burger King.

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